News of Barry Alvarez’s retirement hardly came as a shock. While he’s a robust 74, he’s earned the right to ride off into the sunset, and his 30-year association with UW Athletics offers business lessons for the value of quality management.
I was still a Badger football fan when long-overdue changes — the right changes that replaced incompetence with the astute management of Pat Richter, Alvarez, and others — finally were made. I say still a Badger fan because UW football had become such a laughingstock that the previous coach thought it was a good idea to emerge from a coffin to show he wasn’t dead. Then-Chancellor Donna Shalala was not amused and soon set in motion a transition process.
Four years later, Wisconsin qualified for its first Rose Bowl in nearly 30 years, something I never thought possible in my lifetime, and they kept on winning. The only comparable turnaround story in Wisconsin sports was when the Green Bay Packers managed to win one game in 1958, even with several future Hall of Famers on their roster, and then hired Vince Lombardi away from the New York Giants. By Lombardi’s third season, the Packers were NFL champions.
As they say, the rest is history. The same is true of Alvarez, but his legacy has lasted a lot longer than Lombardi’s. As director of athletics for the past 15 years, he’s had the same impact on the overall athletic program that he had on football (building on what Richter accomplished), and the people who have been put in place to succeed him are well aware of what it takes to be successful here.
His imprint on the football program is still evident (run the ball, stop the run), and with a few exceptions, the athletic program has never been better. His willingness to innovate with conference expansion, his support of the football playoff, and his skepticism about paying athletes who already are getting a free college education (will there be enough money left over for Title IX compliance?) had the best interests of all student athletes in mind, not just the male stars.
As news of Alvarez’s retirement became public, his former players cited his salesmanship (think of that sterling first recruiting class, lured here when the program was a mess), his love of people (an underappreciated aspect of leadership), and his ability to plan and strategize.
His motto was “Don’t Flinch.” He never did.
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